SSTO-Minmus or Mun?

[TronX33]

Assuming I have a ship orbiting at a 100 x 100 km orbit, weighing in at 23.5 tons, and using a nuke for propulsion, and an optimal escape trajectory, would it take more fuel to capture, land, take off, and return to Kerbin from the Mun, or Minmus?

Edited October 21, 2015 by TronX33

[Alshain]

It's hard to say, probably more to Minmus if you are in an equatorial orbit.

[MaverickSawyer]

If in plane with the target, Minmus is slightly less to orbit and land, but for a flyby, the Mun is cheaper.

From an equatorial orbit, the Mun is by far the easier to reach. Point prograde, wait for the Mun to crest the horizon, and light the engines.

[Kelderek]

You don't need to match planes with minmus if you have some patience. Just target Minmus and line up your Pe at either the ascending or descending node then burn until your Ap is close to Minmus's orbit. It may take a bunch of orbits, but you will encounter Minmus eventually without ever having matched orbital planes.

All of that is just to say you can save some DV in getting to Minmus, though I don't know if the aggregate DV for the encounter, orbit, landing, and return is better or worse than for the Mun. I just saw that a couple people here posted "if in plane of target" and wanted to point out that the plane change is not always necessary.

[CrashTestDanny]

I don't think there's really any question about this. Since OP says LAND on the target body then ascend from target body to return to Kerbin, Mun is much more expensive - like 600 deltaV to land and another 600 to take off. The maximum plane change cost for Min is 340.

Use this delta V map for reference: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/96985-1-0-4-WAC-s-Delta-V-Map-continued-2-2-(Aug-13th)-Swash-transition

Min total cost to land from Kerbin surface is 4670, while Mun is 5150 - a difference of 480 in favor of Min. And if you do your plane change to match Min on the outbound leg instead of doing it in LKO you will save a lot also (and it's not always needed as someone else pointed out. Lots of times I just burn a little normal or anti-normal to get the intercept without matching planes and then take care of it in the capture. With Min's low gravity, all that is cheap compared to Mun. The thing that keeps me from using Min more is the 5-8 day trip.

Danny

[Snark]

+1 to Danny's answer. Minmus is by far the cheapest, though it calls for more piloting finesse. It only takes around 100 m/s more dV to get there than to the Mun, whereas landing and takeoff are enormously cheaper on Minmus.

Minmus is so easy in terms of dV that a kerbal on EVA who's standing on the surface can go all the way home to a landing on Kerbin without a ship, using nothing but EVA thrusters.

The Mun's escape velocity is about 800 m/s, whereas Minmus' is 240. Therefore a landing and takeoff is over 1000 m/s more expensive on the Mun when approaching from outside the SoI. Minmus wins hands down.

[TronX33]

+1 to Danny's answer. Minmus is by far the cheapest, though it calls for more piloting finesse. It only takes around 100 m/s more dV to get there than to the Mun, whereas landing and takeoff are enormously cheaper on Minmus.

Minmus is so easy in terms of dV that a kerbal on EVA who's standing on the surface can go all the way home to a landing on Kerbin without a ship, using nothing but EVA thrusters.

The Mun's escape velocity is about 800 m/s, whereas Minmus' is 240. Therefore a landing and takeoff is over 1000 m/s more expensive on the Mun when approaching from outside the SoI. Minmus wins hands down.

Thank you. This was what needed.

[KerikBalm]

Yea... early in career, I get surface samples and EVA reports of nearly every biome simply by EVAing around minmus.

Just get a ship in orbit of minmus, and the RCS pack is your lander with infinite refills.

Only the polar biomers aren't really accessible by EVA from an equatorial orbit (if you don't do an equatorial orbit, its fine).

the dV difference for landing makes Minmus the clear winner.

The ability to Eva to land your kerbal makes it even more of a clear winner if you just want to ferry kerbals there to plant a flag for experience/contracts

[Ant P]

I don't know what the actual dV difference is but my first Mun landing effort resulted in running out of fuel a couple of times during landing, quickloading to before intercept, changing course to Minmus, landing and returning to Kerbin with fuel left over.

[Van Disaster]

Use Mun as an assist and you can save ~100dV to Minmus also - if it's in the right place on the way back it's useful to get your return orbit inside Kerbin's atmosphere, but you don't really save much.